All three-dimensional objects can be experienced in two dimensions: it just takes some careful unpicking of the seams. Witty, comic, plaintive, touching, acerbic, droll, cavalier, caffeinated, irreverent, stringent: Austerities, the mind-altering substantial debut from Sam Riviere, seems to achieve the impossible in being all things at once. Initially conceived as a response to the 'austerity measures' implemented by the coalition government in 2011, the poems quickly began taking on a life in kind: 'cutting' themselves on levels of sentiment, structure and even subject matter. Not content to merely build a series of freethinking poems, these remarkable pieces seem eagerly and mischievously to analyze their moment of creation, then weigh their worth, then consign their excess to the recycling bin thereafter. Experience is speedy, the poems seem to say, so dizzyingly fast that the poetry will inevitably be running to catch up - often arriving at a scene the moment after the moment has gone. The effect is as funny and it is startling, beguiling as it is surprising, and makes Austerities a vivid reminder that deprivation, as Leonard Cohen put it, can be the mother of poetry.
81 Austerities
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'81 Austerities has a wry, sardonic touch, with, however, an underlying power that signals a gifted new voice.' --Edna O'Brien, Guardian Books of the Year
'Tirelessly self-aware, conjuring an uncomfortable tension between actual and virtual communication, this is a quiet and powerful debut.' --Megan Walsh, The Times, Books of the Year
'A collection that thrives on teasing convention, whether of form, technique or subject matter.' --The Spectator
'These poems are both body and screen, the site of endless re-pinging between self and other, and their underlying subject is editing the way others see us.' --The Guardian
'A brilliantly modern vision of boredom and deprivation.' --Dazed & Confused
'The sadness of failed love affairs and the boredom induced by internet pornography are recurrent (and interrelated) subjects. How to dream of a beautiful girl when you can see 10,000 images of her on Facebook?' --The Telegraph
'A revocation of generosity, a violence done to form, a grain to the surface of language.' --New Statesman
'Self-reference may be part of the course for contemporary poets, but Riviere's has taken his engagement with the modern world beyond posing and into formal experimentation.' --The Independent
'The more derisive the poems are about publishing, the media or poetry itself, the more successful they seem to be.' --Exeunt
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A dizzying debut collection from Sam Riviere, an exciting new voice to the Faber poetry list.
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0 of 3 people found the following review helpful
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A really interesting and thought provoking read. A great collection of contemporary poems by a promising young poet. Well done Mr Riviere.
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